


The Voices Beneath

by Tito11



Series: Presenting: The Avengers Do Cinema [6]
Category: Iron Man (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Arthurian legend - Freeform, Dark, F/M, Sibling Incest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-13
Updated: 2013-12-13
Packaged: 2018-01-04 13:17:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,616
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1081462
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tito11/pseuds/Tito11
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Presenting Howard and Maria in the Merlin (1998 mini-series) Au. Featuring Tony as Mordred.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>"Then, alone and without hope, she cried out to the Mother of Magic, and the Mother of Magic answered."</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Voices Beneath

**Author's Note:**

> so, this doesn't have anything to do with the Avengers except for Tony, and it's based off a mini-series, not a movie, but it's going in this series anyway, pretty much because I do what I want. I was going to write this awesome fic where Tony was Mordred and Steve was Galahad and they meet in King Howard's court and Howard was married to Queen Peggy who was having an affair with Sir Joseph, Steve's dad and Howard's right hand man, and Tony's been brainwashed by his mother but Steve turns Tony good with his purity and then they find the Holy Grail together. But until such time as that comes to pass, have this snippet instead. 
> 
> Title from "[Mordred's Lullaby](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ny7NZPfl0l4)" by Heather Dale

The night the boy was conceived, Maria was alone, locked in her rooms while the man who masqueraded as her father seduced her mother. She could see he was an imposter, though he wore her father’s face, but her mother saw nothing and took him to bed. Maria played with her dolls, childish for a girl of eight, or so her mother said, but Maria played because she was alone and her mother could not see. She ate the cheese and bread that were left for her, drank the wine, red like Rome, but her hands slipped and the chalice fell, splashing red down her dress and onto her dolly. She looked at the doll, at the red staining its beautiful face, and she knew then, with the Sight inside her, that her mother would not survive the birth of the boy.

The next morning, the man who was not her father was gone, and by the next evening, her real father was dead, the king’s arrow through his heart. It must have been the king who seduced her mother, Maria realized, but that did not make it better, not then and not ever. The king had betrayed her father and she would never forgive him or the boy for that. 

While her mother grieved for her husband, the bastard inside her grew. She did not know yet, but he was there, tainting her. Maria knew it was true, but did not say, for there was nothing she could do to save her mother. She was alone in her Sight, as she was alone in her rooms so much of the pregnancy. 

The birth of the boy was long. Maria was locked in again, but she could hear the screaming, could hear the boy killing her mother. It lasted all day and all night and when they let her out again, her mother was dead and the boy, named Howard by her mother’s own tongue, was being taken away. The man who took him was a wizard, but Maria could not guess what that meant, not then, anyway, though she had time to reflect on it in the long years after her mother’s death.

They sent her to a convent while her father’s house laid empty, waiting for the boy who was not his son to grow up and claim it. Maria learned hymns, learned prayers, learned to speak with their god she did not believe in, but through it all, she kept tabs on the boy with her Sight. 

They gave him to a knight of the king because the king himself was grown mad with the love of magic. The knight raised him as his own, taught him to ride as he learned to walk, taught him to wield a sword before he learned to read. Knight’s prerogative, all of it, but the boy grew clever with the teaching and the wizard Nicholas was at his side to guide him. By the time he was seventeen, he was every bit the bastard his birthright proclaimed him to be. 

Maria had long known the boy would be the one to draw the sword from the stone, but her scream of rage when it happened shattered the mirror she watched him through and all the others in the convent. The sisters wept over the sign from their god, but Maria clutched a shard of glass tight in her hand and let the blood flow through her fingers. She would kill the boy, she knew it then. The convent had nothing for her, never had, so she left, returned to her father’s house, empty still and maybe forever.

Then, alone and without hope, she cried out to the Mother of Magic, and the Mother of Magic answered. She appeared as a Lady, the sun shining from her curls and the magic dancing between her fingers. 

“What need you, child?” the Lady asked, drying Maria’s tears, pushing them deep into her soul to enflame the anger. 

“Forgive me, Lady,” Maria said, falling at the Mother’s feet. “I’m alone and afraid.”

“And angry,” the Lady said. “What do you have to be angry about?”

“They’ve made him king,” Maria said wretchedly. “They’ve made my bastard brother king, after all that he’s done to me. They’ve given him a knight as a father and they’ve given him wizards as tutors, and now they’ve given him the bloody crown. It should be mine!”

“That’s what you want, is it?” the Lady asked, though she must have known, must have been able to see right through Maria into her soul. “Well, if it’s the crown you want, it’s the crown you’ll get. At least, your son will, that much shall be made done.”

“Mother,” Maria said, not understanding. “How can this be so?”

“You, child, will seduce your brother. When you come to him, he’ll know you not. He does not remember the sister whose mother he murdered by his birth. And from your union, a babe shall be born, mark my words. And he shall be the answer to all problems, yours and mine. He shall have the crown and with it, bring people back to the Old Religion.”

“Thank you, Mother,” Maria said. The Lady would help her. The Lady would give her the crown.

Seducing the king was easier than Maria expected, with the Lady’s blessing behind her. She arrived unannounced at his coronation, a lady in a fine gown, red, because the Lady commanded it and because it was Howard’s favorite. He favored her with a dance, kissed her hand at the end of it, and at the end of the night, after the feast and the dancing, he took her back to his tent and fucked her. He fell asleep with his head pillowed against her breasts, remarkably foolish for a man just crowned king. She could have killed him there while he slept like a babe, but the Lady had a plan and Maria would not stray from it so soon. Instead, she left him there, King of Albion and brother who had betrayed her. 

The pregnancy- for there was a pregnancy, the Lady saw to that- was shorter than Maria expected. The Lady did not come to her again, but her power was in the babe, who grew quickly inside her. He must have been an impatient lad, Maria thought, quick to learn and quick to accomplish, for his birth was much sooner than it should have been. It near killed her to bring him into the world, no midwife at her side, no high priest to bless her or drug her, just Maria and the babe and the bloody bed sheets beneath the two of them. She called him Anthony.

And then, she was not alone. The Lady, in her wisdom, had given her Anthony and Anthony would bring Albion to its knees. 

 

Anthony was never boy, only ever a piece in a game. Whether the one making up all the rules was his mother or the Lady she served, Anthony didn’t know. But he let himself be controlled. He never made a move of his own, not obviously, anyway. He wasn’t sure he could outplay his mother, not just yet. And it didn’t matter, anyway, because the endgame was the death of the king, and Anthony had his own reasons to hate his father.

When Anthony was four, his mother gave him a knife. She let him get a feel for it, let him learn to wield it. He taught himself how to stab a man, just like he taught himself everything. His mother told him what to do, what to learn, but she never instructed, only watched as he came into knowledge. He learned about poisons much the same way, and manipulation, as well.

And then there was the magic. The magic he never had to learn, never had to teach himself. It came natural to him. His mother said he was blessed by the Lady, that she’d caused his birth and gave him his gifts. He knew instinctively how to wield the power within him and with it, he could do anything.

But, there was one thing his mother taught him.

“Anthony,” she would say as she pulled him onto her lap. “You can do whatever you like, but you must never be rude. Rude is being weak.”

She was right, of course. The key to getting what you wanted wasn’t through force or intimidation. It wasn’t through threats or insults. It was through illusion. Anthony was what his mother wanted to see, and that was how he got what he wanted. He played along with her game, let himself be used, and it led him exactly where he wanted: in a position to kill his father.

 

“Are you ready, my son?” his mother asked.

“Don’t you trust me, Mother?” Anthony asked, grinning with all his teeth. 

“I don’t trust anyone,” his mother said. “And I’d be a fool to trust you.”

“What must I do to earn your trust?” Anthony asked. He didn’t stop grinning, didn’t try on the obedient son act. His mother knew exactly who and what he was and he’d never fool her. “If it is within my power, I will do it.”

“Tell me about your father,” she purred, leaning forward and taking his hand in hers. 

“He’s a thief and a traitor. He wears the crown that should be mine.”

“And his wife?” his mother asked, her nails digging into his palm. 

“A flower, nothing more,” Anthony assured her. 

“And what shall you do to them? To them and all those who stand in your way?”

Anthony felt his grin widen. “Kill them, of course.”


End file.
